200 likes on Consumed! Pretty cool!
Thanks for making this guy of few words feel so loved.
I’ve noticed that I’ve had a lot of the same bloggers likes over the past couple years and it really means a lot. I could be so much better at reaching out and following blogging etiquette, however that’s not in my repertoire, but something to work on for sure. So for now a big thanks!
On these crisp winter nights
When the chill presses
On your bones,
On these nights you forget
Your gloves
And have to hide your
Hands in your jacket cuff
While you walk
You feel like your
Legs and the ground
Are one and the same
These are the nights
You’ll reach for tomorrow.
An American-style haiku
I’m pretty sure I posted my first Sumi attempt a while back, though now that I’m looking for it I don’t see it. After many mistakes and mishaps I finally did something else I thought worth sharing.
There is so much to learn with this amazing art form, and recently I’ve been experimenting with the amount of water, and color tone. Oh yeah I guess brush strokes, and technique, different effects of the paper and on and on. I’ve found that the more technique I learn from books, the less I know.
I started with a traditional bamboo painting, which I thought turned out really well. My wife was even surprised at how good it turned out. Then I started digging through books and videos to discover more traditional and varied techniques, only to find that I couldn’t even replicate what I’d already done! It was a miserable few weeks as my confidence dwindled. I finally had to take a step back from painting bamboo. I feel like its the attempt to learn techniques in this way that requires students to invest hundreds of hours of work. Mastering the skill only comes when one can finally forget all that was learned from books in the first place.
For now I’ll keep experimenting. That really is the best way to learn (for me anyway). It gives me the freedom to make mistakes and inch my way closer to discovering the art of the ‘controlled accident’.
Knowing is the canvas
That takes in color
It is the silence
that receives sound
Knowing is awareness
It is empty, bare, unconditioned.
Knowing receives,
It is silent understanding
without comment.
When you know
You just know,
You know?
In the crisp pre-dawn
Cloud and fog are not two, but one.
The tulip threatens to bloom.
A brief goodbye
to the world of
weirdos, freaks and geeks.
Individuated
Buzzword bitches
You’re all so celebrated
I’m the nrmL guy
That makes it all possible
I’m the guy they put through
the meat grinder
You can keep your starring role
I’ll be the support.
I’m the guy that lives where
They only build gas stations.
I’m the guy that slowly
merges in front of you
on the freeway.
It’s OK,
it’s better this way.
Without me you wouldn’t
be so unique.
I’m the guy transcending archetypes.
I’m the guy who’s
fading away into Anonymity.
I’m neither here nor there
I am
Because you are.
